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If you want to go, sneak out and meet me at our spot. I’ll see you then.
Love,
Leo
“What?” I breathe out, looking up at him. His eyes are glossy with tears and the true heartbreak in their depths has my heart shattering.
He tried to save her.
“She never showed,” he says in a broken whisper. “I never saw her again.”
“But, she told me not to trust you,” I breathe out.
If his heart could break further, I just witnessed it.
“I don’t know why she’d say that,” he admitted. “I came here that night, knowing something bad happened. Her dad found me first and threatened to kill me. We argued and I told him to let me find her. He laughed and waved at the house, giving me permission. I searched every room, even the basement. She was already gone.”
“So, you just accepted it and left?” Jayce asks curiously.
“No. I demanded to see this barn,” he says, gesturing at the lopsided structure. “He let me again. I found no trace of her and when I called her name she didn’t call back. But something was unhinged about him that night, he was near feral, desperate. I came back every day for weeks and got nowhere.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We read you all wrong. I wonder if she heard you here and thought you betrayed her. That you were part of whatever happened.”
“Do you have things you aren’t telling me about all this?” he demands.
“You’ve seen a lot of what we found,” I promise. “But I know she’s here on this farm.”
“Wait, when did she tell you not to trust me?” he asks, putting the pieces together as he pulls out of his grief. “You heard from her after that?”
“No,” I say far too quickly, his eyes narrowing on me.
“I see ghosts,” I say bluntly. I’m not sure what prompted me to share that but I do. He lets out a startled laugh before realizing not one of us is laughing with him.
“Excuse me?” he asks.
“I’m serious. She’s given me every lead I’ve had so far and led me to these,” I admit. “Well, technically, Marx did for the letters.”
“Marx is here, too?” he scoffs. “Pandora always told me she believed in ghosts. You’re telling me you guys see them?”
“I’m not going to debate. I know what I see and I have bones to find. She deserves to have a proper burial and there’s one hell of an evil ghost after us,” I say as I glance down at the letters. “I want to see if she left any clues in here.”
“Let’s all go in for a cup of coffee, and take a breather,” Eli suggests. “Sheriff, you can join us if you want and we’ll tell you everything. But it’s going to sound insane.”
“It already does,” he mutters but follows us inside. This should be fun.
“Excuse the mess, we are still deciding on whether we want to keep this house or not. With the break-ins and just the bad juju from my uncle and all, we thought maybe a fresh start was in order,” I tell the sheriff as I lead him into the dusty dining room. Lucien walks in the front door as we come in the back.
“Perfect timing,” I call out to him. “We’re just about to break the news to Leo about what we can do.”
Lucien opens and closes his mouth before just shaking his head and joining us.
“Are you still having trouble with break-ins?” Leo asks as he wipes off some of the dust before he sits down.
“Yeah, there was someone here the other night, but they ran off,” Jayce says as he offers Leo a cup.
“Thank you. How’d you get that done so fast?” he asks as he accepts the cup.
“It’s a fancy one-cup machine. Doesn’t take long for it to work its magic,” Jayce tells him.
